Obama Press Conference: The FUN and POIGNANT Parts, All the Boring Stuff Left Out

June 23, 2009

Obama just gave a press conference and, since as usual nothing earth-shattering was said, here are the fun and poignant parts:

POIGNANT: A reporter from HuffPo brought a question from a brave Iranian, who asked, “Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do so without conditions… isn’t that a betrayal?” Obama said since “we didn’t have international observers” we “can’t say definitively what happened at polling places throughout the coutry,” but “a sizable percentage of the people themselves… consider the election illegitimate.” He said it’s “not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path,” and “we hope they will take it.” Whew!

FUN: Asked about the libertarian argument that government health care would drive private health care out of business, Obama riddled them this: if they say the marketplace provides the best health care, “then why is it that government, which they say can’t run anything, would drive them out of business? That’s not logical.”

FUN: Asked if, in his stronger statements on Iran today, he was “inluenced” by “John McCain and Lindsay Graham calling you timid and weak,” he said, “What do you think?”

FUN: Some clever fellow referred to the “Spock” logic of his health care answer. Obama asked if he were referring to his ears. The reporter then asked Obama to answer a question another reporter had tried to ask earlier. “Are you the ombudsman for the White House News Corps?” asked Obama, and indicated that the reporter had only one question, to which the reporter replied, “I have a two-part question.” Big laughs all around.

FUN: A reporter asked Obama how much he smoked, when he smoked, etc. “You just think it’s neat to ask me about my smoking,” he said, but duly reported that he was not a “daily” nor a “constant” smoker, that “I don’t do it in front of my kids, I don’t do it in front of family,” etc., giving us a subject for the next Rightbloggers column, hopefully.

POIGNANT: Someone asked him about Neda the Joan of Arc of Iran, and he said her story was “heartbreaking,” etc.

There you go — we laughed, we cried, it was better than Cats. And surprisingly “on” for a matinee! Image via Party King Entertainment.